Over the years, I have blogged about 100+ kinds of manipulatives, from the homemade variety to the expensive stuff, from the kinds designed for toddlers to tools for early school-aged children. I really like interesting, diverse, multidimensional tools that can be used in a variety of ways and for many developmental levels. Today, let’s take […]
This just in from Pittsburgh’s NPR station. Child care costs soar as child care providers barely earn a living. Check it out.
This list, although not close to being complete, is a nice beginning if you want to enhance your children’s library with books loaded with mathematical concepts. It comes from Judy Schickendanz’s book, Increasing the Power of Instruction: Integration of Language, Literacy, and Math Across the Preschool Day (NAEYC, 2008). Check it out.
According to last Sunday’s New York Times’ article in the Sunday Review by Andrew Hacker, we are teaching math wrong. Rather than focusing on algebra and geometry, we should be focusing on “quantitative reasoning” skills – the math skills we will most likely use throughout our lives. These skills support a more comprehensive understanding of the math […]
How is rhythm and rhyme connected to early math learning? Our favorite rhythmic book, when the boys were little, was Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. I read that book so many times that I know every word by heart. We purchased several copies over those early years, since they did get a little worn out from […]
Everything about Dr. Seuss brings a smile to my face, from the rhyming sequences to the nonsensical words. The drawings are so lively and so engaging-you don’t know where to look first. If we begin at the beginning – the first book that comes to mind is The Cat in the Hat. There are so […]
While observing a kindergarten classroom the other day, I observed a child counting the pips on a die each time she rolled it. The lesson asked that children roll one die, read the number of pips, and complete a word chart determined by the number. Interestingly, this child could both read simple sight words […]
Take a look at this article from Bloomberg News which summarizes some important findings culled from a gigantic research paper funded by the Bridgespan Group and the Pritzker Children’s Initiative. Read through the list carefully and remind yourselves why the work we do is so critical. Write down some of the statistics so the next time someone […]
One of our Early Math Counts readers requested the link to the Inchworms I wrote about recently. I went to Google and put in the search terms inchworm and manipulative and the first thing that popped up was a site that sells the Inchworms I was looking for as well as Centibugs – a new manipulative I […]
How can we make meaning for young children out of a holiday like “President’s Day”? Our youngest children have no idea (or very little ideas) about the Presidents, or what a holiday that celebrates them is about. Older preschoolers may know who our current president is, they may even be able to name him, but […]